Ethiopia Wait List Movement

We are at #46 now!! Yippy!  So far it's been 4 months and we've moved 4 spots. Not bad. There was an agency update a few weeks ago that basically stated that with all the changes to the Ethiopia program that the wait time estimates have increased to the following:

1. Infant girls:  12-18 months
2. Infant boys:  12-15 months.
3. Toddler girls:  6-12 months
4. Toddler boys:  4-8 months
5. Children over 5 years:  3-6 months
6. Siblings:  We cannot predict, as there is such a wide variety of what families on this list are approved for.

I was having a bit of a hard time with this initially. Probably because I'm so afraid of it turning into what happened with China with the wait time continuing to increase, and of course because the longer it takes the older I get. But we shall see. I really hope we'll be matched some time next year. And even better if we can travel to get her before Christmas 2011. One can hope.

Ethiopia Wait List Movement

We are now number...

USCIS

Went to USCIS to get fingerprinted this morning, which seems to have gone well. Met somewhat of a local "celebrity" in the New York adoption community (I would say so anyway). WAY back when we were rushing to meet the China deadline 3 years ago, I had found a contact name of someone at the Manhattan USCIS office from a couple different local Yahoo groups, Mr. Hernandez. I've read good things about him being helpful and all that.  We had contacted him by phone once or twice about expediting our paperwork (deadline was approaching fast) and we even drove into the city to go in person to the office back then. We didn't actual meet Mr. Hernandez then (even though we did ask for him), but I believe his assistant/co-worker had to get him to approve something for us and had disappeared into the office and came back with our fingerprinting appointment..FOR THAT SAME DAY! Only thing we had to do was drive as fast as possible back in the other direction to another location before they closed. LOL Which we did and managed to get our I171H in time to meet the deadline.

So anyway, back to today. This time our appointments were in a USCIS much closer to us. We got there early and were taken right away. Freddy went to the back of the room first where they did his.. then I went with another guy to do mine. We were a couple of sections apart but I could see him and heard him talking with the girl doing his fingerprints.  Another guy had gone over to the area where he was and they were all chatting and laughing, although I couldn't hear what they were talking about.  Then when my prints were done I sat back down and waited for him to get done. What I didn't realize was that he was already done but was chatting it up with the guy that walked over to his area. Then Freddy starts walking toward me the other guy disappears into an office and he was like "you know who that was right?"  And immediately I said "Mr. Hernandez?!?"  LOL Like I am old friends with the man or something and it could only possibly be him. LOL And it was! I was like why didn't you tell me!!  lol  So when he came back out of the office we went back to chat with him a little. He had remembered our names.. which is a pretty common name and FROM 3 YEARS AGO! What was really funny was that while Freddy was doing his fingerprinting and Mr. Hernandez had gone over there, he was actually the one that said to Freddy that he recognized the name and said to Freddy that Freddy probably knows him. And when he told him his name Freddy told him it sounded familiar, but it took him a minute to link it since he's in a different office, then it hit him. Then apparently, the guy doing my fingerprints said something funny and I laughed and Freddy told them "That must be my wife laughing at me for not immediately knowing who you are".  LOL  Ok so if I had actually heard what they were talking about I probably would have been laughing.  LOL

So we chatted a bit about the new adoption and about how he ended up in the new office due to USCIS centralizing it's process now and then left. I know this means nothing to anyone (unless #1 - You live in NY and #2 if you've been desperate to find a contact name at USCIS that can help you..AND came upon the name Mr. Hernandez. LOL) but I just wanted to document it here and I really did feel like I was meeting a celebrity.. LOL Oh my sad little world!  LOL  I did manage to resist the urge to ask for his autograph! A valid  I171H will have to suffice!

China: 38 Months Waiting.

10 Things..

Transracial Adoption & Adult Adoptees

Lately I've been reading a lot of transracial adult adoptee blogs and have found them to be very interesting and informative tools to learn more about adoption and identity from the perspective of the adoptee, which after all, will be my child(ren) one day. I really appreciate those bloggers for being so open and honest about their lives, and even though I am sure they don't all blog to enlighten adoptive parents and potential adoptive parents, I'm grateful to have the opportunity to be able to read their stories and to be able to be open to being enlightened (I hope that made some sense! lol ). I will say that some of posts may not easy to read (maybe they weren't easy to write either), but I still find it important to be exposed to it and that's really my main point for posting this.

At some point I came across the below blog post and I've seen other adoption blogs link to it since then so I figured I'd post it as well.

John Raible Online - Crash Course in transracial parenting

Great information about books, movies and links to other adoptee blogs, some of which I've added to my sidebar and have been going through. I think it's a great place to start if your looking to learn more about various transracial adoptee perspectives. I've included some of the books from the post below.



Happy reading!

Fingerprint Appointments!

We send out our I600A application to USCIS on 6/2 (overnight) and I received our fingerprinting appointments in the mail today!! Our appointments are for 6/22, less than 2 weeks away! Wow! That was pretty quick! I wonder how long it will take to get our I171H after that.

On another note, I can't believe it's June already! One month and a day since getting on the wait list and already down 2 spots! The estimate wait time till referral is supposed to be about 8-12 months, which I think will probably be at least 12 months since the list seemed to have shot up in the past couple of months. Eight months would be January 2011 and 12 months would be May 2011. I just hope that we can get her home before the end of 2011. Oh I CAN'T wait!! :-)

We Picked A Name!

When we decided to start an adoption from Ethiopia we decided that we'd pick a new name for our future Ethiopian daughter instead of using the name we picked for our future Chinese daughter, Raven. I just feel that that is our Chinese daughter's name and if we don't get to complete that adoption then we won't be using it at all.

ANYWAY, we decided on the name Alicia, pronounced "ah LEE sha". One thing I like about it is it has the same first two letters as Freddy's given name. Freddy also likes the spanish connection & pronunciation "ah LEE see uh". I think it's a pretty and feminine name. I've had it in my head for a few months now and it's definitely the one. :-)


Most likely we will use "Alicia" as her first name and use her Ethiopian name as her middle name, depending on how old she is when we receive her referral and what her Ethiopian name is. We might keep her Ethiopian name as first name and use Alicia for middle name. Not sure yet, but we will in some form be keeping her Ethiopian name.

Ethiopia Wait List Movement

A family accepted a referral of a six-month old baby boy today so we get to move up on the list one spot (they were probably on the baby girl list as well which is why we get to move up a spot). Congrats to that family!

Dossier To Ethiopia!!!

I wasn't expecting to get an email from our agency today, but I just happened to check and received an email stating that our dossier is on it's way to Ethiopia!!! WOW! I knew that they had sent it to DC to be authenticated. Pretty exciting!

China: 37 Months

I haven't really been keeping track of China referrals or updates lately. It's too much. I'm trying to just focus on our Ethiopian adoption right now and some adoption books that I've been reading. Plenty to keep me busy! No newly finished craft projects yet either. Slowly working on finishing another crocheted blanket, but that's about it.

List Movement!

If I have this right, I think we just moved up one spot on the list today! According to our agency site, a family accepted a referral for 2 four year old boys today and that family was on all the lists (baby girl, baby boy, toddler girl, toddler boy and siblings) and everyone (after a specified number) moves up one slot.. so we are now at #49 (if i have that right). Very exciting!

ON THE LIST!!!!!

YES!!!!!!! I decided to check my email a little less than an hour ago and saw the email from IAN that WE ARE ON THE LIST!!!!!! #50!!!!!! YES! YES! YES!

So now we official get to wait more, but just to be on the list is such a huge relief. Now we just watch the list go down down down till they get to us. I'm not even going to try to predict how long that is going to take, but hey, I've been waiting a looooong time already. I'm used to it at this point. LOL

YES!!

Tracking..

I'm not stalking Fedex..

(woohoo!)

Final Docs Off To Agency!!

I received the last documents I needed from our home study agency and Fedex'd everything to our agency today!!!! They should have it tomorrow morning!! I hope all of that is in order and we will hear something by end of day tomorrow.. although I have a feeling I will have to suffer through the weekend before getting on the waiting list. It's going to be a loooooong weekend!!

Oh and it's our 5th wedding anniversary too today!!

No Documents Today..

Maybe tomorrow... if tomorrow, then homestudy and final docs can be with agency by Friday. Probably won't get on the list till next week.

The baby girl list is up to #50. Ouch. When we started in Jan it was at #24. More than doubled. Can I make it in at or under #55?

We shall see.

Sooooo Close...

Today we received our home study in the mail!! I was sooooooo excited as I was all prepared to turn around and throw that and a few other agency required docs into a Fedex envelope and ship it off to our agency, but then noticed that the home study agency left out 2 docs that we need. We called them and they had the 2 docs right there, already filled out and will send them today so hopefully we will get them by Wednesday. We also called our agency and they said that as soon as they get the rest of the docs, they bring them over to the placement agency and we should get on the waiting list shortly after that, hopefully by end of this week, assuming the homestudy agency mailed out the remaining docs today and assuming we get them by Wednesday. I was a little bummed because I feel like we should have gotten our homestudy a little sooner than we did, and then for it to be missing documents that I specifically requested, well I was a little annoyed. But hey, we're still soooooo close to getting on the list!! A few days isn't going to matter that much in the long run.

China LID - 3 YEARS!

Well today we've been officially logged in to adopt from China for 3 YEARS! Whoa. I'm not really following/posting about referrals anymore because, well, it's a little overwhelming. And of course I am focused right now on our Ethiopia adoption. Three years have seem to have flown by, but at the same time dragged, if that makes any sense. I really don't know what the future of our China adoption is right now. We'll see what happens once we get back from Ethiopia with our first daughter. Ironically, China has currently referred up to LIDs of April 17th, 2006, so only 365 more LIDs to go.. LOL

Speaking of the Ethiopia adoption, we're just waiting for the homestudy agency to mail the homestudy to us so we can send it to CCAI. Not sure how long after that it takes to get on the waiting list but I am getting a little anxious to get on it already! I hope we get the homestudy this week!

Home Study is DONE!

WOOHOO!! I'm just waiting for the HS agency to get it notarized and mail it to me!!! Then I can send our agency the rest of the IAN docs and the home study and that's it!! Soooooo close to getting on the waiting list!!!

I finished another half-finished project from probably a couple years ago.. lol



I'm actually a crocheting fool these days.. lol ... and I started crocheting another one too. And last year I made a wooden dog food holder. Well I actually made 2 back then, the first one was too tall for Dexter (the bigger dog) at the time, so I never stained it and built a smaller one. Well now Dexter is big enough for it, so stained it today and will give Yoshi the smaller one, which I hope isn't too tall for him and Dexter can use the taller one now. Almost finished with that one, have to polyurethane it still. Then another half-finished project finished! This is a picture of it I took last year.


It's so funny because I am on this kick to finish all these projects all of a sudden. Maybe it's kind of a nesting thing or something.. LOL Whatever it is I hope it sticks around because I have a bunch of less fun projects to do too, like patching the holes in the wall a certain puppy put in them last year! I think he's finally done chewing on things inside the house! He's moved on.. now he's into destroying my backyard! But who can get mad at that face???

Dossier Passed!

Got an email from our agency (CCAI) today that our dossier (minus the homestudy) passed critical review!! Our homestudy is still being reviewed by IAN so once we hear back about that the social worker can get all that stuff together and get it to us so we can send it back to CCAI for everything to go off to IAN. Should hear something next week I hope!

Ironically, next Saturday (17th) will be 3 years officially logged in with China. I hope to be celebrating by sending off my final (Ethiopia) homestudy to the agency by then!!!!! LOL